Audience Development, Beer, Books and Optimism (#smbtv)
The passion and optimism for Troy from some of the people I met was inspiring and infectious, reminding me very much of the community that’s gathered around Digital Book World over the past year.
Dark Horse Circumvents iTunes, Plans to Sell Direct
“No licensing fees to Apple means we can pay our creators more while offering readers lower prices.”
The Ideal 21st Century Publisher: A Remix
My fantasy publisher would follow a pretty simple equation: Tor.com + Runes of Gallidon + Book View Cafe + Cursor = Awesome!
Fragmented Marketing: Making Owls Appealing
“From the Director of 300 and Watchmen” isn’t an ideal tagline for a PG-rated movie aimed at kids.
Your Brand is NOT a Community
Back in January, Shiv Singh gave a great keynote presentation, Engaging Readers in the Digital Age, at the inaugural Digital Book World Conference that, in retrospect, set the tone for what was to come in 2010. “Build consumer brands,” Singh exhorted, “because your current value chain is breaking.” Since then, we’ve seen the introduction of
The Godin Situation: Content, Context, Community
Seth Godin’s decision to not publish his theoretical next book(s) via traditional channels has caused a predictable stir amongst the pundit class, with proclamations about “The Death of Publishing” coming from many of the usual suspects looking to scare up page views. Predictably, few have acknowledged the unusually nuanced statement Godin actually made about his situation: “The thing is–now I know who my readers are. Adding layers or faux scarcity doesn’t help me or you.”
Can Digital Expand the Audience for Comic Books?
From a fragile network of brick-and-mortar direct market retailers and the often fickle tastes of hardcore, social media-savvy fans, to online piracy and the tantalizing possibilities of the iPad, comic books have been out on the bleeding edge of the digital transition for years. While some comics publishers have had success expanding beyond the limited
Goodreads Takes Next Step in Social Reading
Americans spend nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites and blogs, according to the latest Nielsen research, and the most conservative estimates predict eBooks will represent at least 10% of book sales by the end of the year, but one question that’s not been clearly answered yet is whether there’s any
“Weird and Wonderful”? Me, on the Future of Publishing
The above tweet led to a fun interview over the at the Book View Cafe blog, “Weird and Wonderful: Digital Book World and Guy LeCharles Gonzalez,” with author Sue Lange asking me some interesting questions that really made me think hard to solidify some of my ideas about the “Future of Publishing” and what it means for
On Inception, The Passage, and Writing in The Obama Era
The weakness of “It’s all a dream” — why we hate that, why we feel cheated when narratively anything is revealed to be all a dream — is that you’ve just asked me to spend so much time and emotional capital investing in the stakes of this, and you’ve now swept it away with the